IT Column September 2016 - Email Addresses

[Paul Spencer]

Why give the BDC your email address? After all, businesses sell on email addresses and that results in spam (or "unwanted commercial email"). Right? Well, let's get that one out of the way. The BDC does not, and never will, pass on your email address outside the club without your permission unless legally obliged to do so. Currently, the club database contains email addresses for around three quarters of our members. So back to the question. If you are not one of those three quarters and you have an email address, how does it benefit you to let the club know what it is?

You will have heard about Full Throttle. This is a regular email newsletter from the club that gives up to date information about recent and future events. This has been one of the most popular recent communications initiatives from the club. The Competitions team also issues a newsletter that you can be sent whether or not you compete. You never know, you might decide that the MIRA Sprint looks like a good way to sample competitions in a low-key way.

Your email address is also available to other members both through the printed "Members and Their Bentleys" and online. Although you can opt out of the online version, I recommend that you don't since the printed member list is only published every three years and so is necessarily out of date. If I want to contact a member whose email address I don't have, I always use the web site (on a PC or my phone). It is always up to date and I can just use the member search then click a link to send an email.

There are more ways in which the web site uses your email address to keep in touch with you. If you book an event online (which will be the subject of a future column), or if the organiser uses the facilities the web site provides for other forms of booking, the organiser will automatically be provided with your email address and so can use this to send out information. Those who have organised large events will know how much harder life is if they are missing just one or two email addresses for the participants. The web site also has facilities for regions to contact their members, but again, only if we have your email address.

And finally, email makes life so much easier for the hard-working staff at Wroxton. And if we can make life easier for them, we can keep membership fees down.

So providing the club with your email address means both your region and the club as a whole can keep you informed better and in a more timely way. Life becomes easier for those organising the events you attend, which has to be a good thing when these people are all doing this as volunteers, and it helps members you met at a recent event get in touch with you afterwards. Overall, it helps you stay more in touch with the club and its members as well as making life easier and keeping costs down.

If you want to register your email address with the club, the easiest way is to do it through the My Account area of the web site. There was information on this part of the site in last month's column. If you do not want to do that, just send an email to info@bdcl.org or call the office.

[Robert Craven]

Paul,
I entirely agree with and endorse what you've said, except that your first bit about the confidentiality of email addresses prompted me to wonder how it is that I get (as I think other members do) the glossy Bentley Company magazine. Somehow they've got my address and post me the magazine, even though I didn't ask for it (and can't take it all that seriously!). Did the Club give them my address?

[Paul Spencer]

Good point Robert. The club's data protection policy includes the wording:

"The information mentioned above will not be disclosed to external organisations other than to Bentley Motors Ltd. and those providing services to the Club, e.g. insurance brokers, for purposes directly related to the interests of the Club and its members."

So my statement in the article represented an alternative truth. Sorry!